Overview

:warning: If you encounter missing DLL errors, install the Visual Studio 2019 Redistributable.

This release further improves gamepad support, making the game fully usable without a keyboard or mouse being present. Thanks to this, RigelEngine is now playable on hand-held devices like the Odroid Go Advance.

In addition, there is now preliminary support for running the game in a web browser (via Webassembly) thanks to @pratikone, and a few bug fixes.

Release notes

General improvements

• More robust sound format handling, fixing issues on some platforms where the audio device does not support 16-bit signed integer PCM output (e.g. web browsers)
• It's now possible to navigate the options menu using a keyboard

Gamepad support improvements

• All menus, including the options menu, can now be navigated via gamepad.
• The highscore name entry screen can now be exited using a gamepad.
• When in-game, the "start" button on a gamepad now brings up a pause menu, allowing saving, loading, modifying options etc. without needing a keyboard.
• When saving the game using a gamepad, a name is automatically generated for the saved game to avoid the need for a keyboard. The name contains episode, level, and difficulty.

Bug fixes

• When dying in a boss level after activating the boss, the music was not reset back to the pre-boss music.
• The hint machine could be activated even without having the hint globe (by pressing up)

Overview

:warning: If you encounter missing DLL errors, install the Visual Studio 2019 Redistributable.

This is a small bugfix release, plus some OpenGL compatibility improvements.

Release Notes

General improvements

• It's now possible to set the difficulty when launching into a specific level via the command line (example: -l L2 --difficulty easy)

OpenGL support improvements

• The minimum required GLSL version is now 130 instead of 150, allowing the game to run on older GPUs which support OpenGL 3.0 but not GLSL 150.
• More robust OpenGL initialization error handling
• OpenGL ES support was broken and is now fixed, allowing the game to run on some older GPUs and on a Raspberry Pi (not optimized yet)
• Fixed a crash when running the game on Linux with Mesa software rendering

Bug fixes

• Fixed camera position being wrong upon respawning
• Fixed missing animation for walking turkey

Overview

:warning: If you encounter missing DLL errors, install the Visual Studio 2019 Redistributable.

As of this release, the full game (Shareware and registered version content) can be completed without any known issues, making RigelEngine feature complete in terms of gameplay.

In addition, gamepad/controller support was further improved.

Release notes

Gamepad support improvements

• Force field card readers, door locks, and teleporters can be triggered by moving the analog stick up. Previously, this worked only with the D-Pad
• Improved analog stick sensitivity for piloting Duke's ship
• It's now possible to use the analog stick for menu navigation, in addition to the D-Pad

Bug fixes

• It was possible for a ceiling sucker to try to eat Duke while he was already dying, which would lead to a crash. This is now fixed.
• Fixed an inconsistency in the way blowing fans work. This was making certain areas in the game harder to reach than intended (e.g. the upper left edge allowing access to a laser pickup near the exit of O7)
• Duke would fail to attach to climbing pipes in certain circumstances, making some jumps in O1 harder than intended. This is now fixed.
• Fixed initial camera offset being slightly wrong on some levels.
• Fixed red birds sometimes getting stuck after reaching the ground
• Fixed some inconsistencies in how the red bird behaves
• The water effect shader did not compile for OpenGL ES, making the game unplayable in GL ES mode (e.g. on a Raspberry Pi). This is now fixed.
• Fixed cloak not being removed when dying while cloaked

Overview

:warning: If you encounter missing DLL errors, install the Visual Studio 2019 Redistributable.

This is primarily a bug fix release, fixing a lot of issues discovered while playing through episodes 3 and 4, and some other problems.

Additionally, game pad support is improved.

Release notes

General improvements

• Debugging functionality is now disabled by default. This prevents accidentally hitting one of the debug feature keys (like single step mode) during gameplay. It can be reenabled with a command line option (-d).

Gamepad support improvements

• Analog stick movement is more reliable, especially on a PS4 controller, and there is much less unintended up/down motion
• The trigger buttons (LT/RT aka L2/R2) can now be used for jumping/shooting in addition to LB/RB (aka L1/R1)
• The game will now detect a gamepad if it's plugged in or turned on during gameplay

Bug fixes

• Conveyor belts with an upward slope (as found in level N7) did not work
• Cloak was not effective when eaten by a snake or ceiling sucker
• When cloaked, enemy shots were flying through the player instead of disappearing
• Enemy rocket shots were missing acceleration
• Explosion effect was missing for enemy rocket shots
• Nuclear waste barrels were not affected by gravity or conveyor belts
• Inconsistencies in climbing pipe movement which caused problems in level O1 are now fixed
• Hover bot spawn machine was spawning indefinitely, instead of stopping after 30 bots
• Bonuses 2 and 7 were potentially given incorrectly if the player died before reaching a checkpoint
• Watchbot container would disappear if the carrier was destroyed after it had released the container
• Stair stepping movement wasn't fully matching the original, causing an inconsistency with the conveyor belts found in O5 and O6
• Physics for items released from item boxes were incorrect, causing problems in O5 and O6

Overview

:warning: If you encounter missing DLL errors, install the Visual Studio 2019 Redistributable.

This release adds a graphical UI for selecting a Duke Nukem II installation to use for loading game data, improving usability (thanks to contributor @pratikone!). Also fixes a couple of bugs.

Note: This release still has a bug which makes conveyor belts work incorrectly in the 7th level of the 3rd episode (N7). This bug is already fixed on the master branch.

Release notes

New features

• When starting RigelEngine for the first time, a graphical file browser UI is shown. This allows choosing the location of the Duke Nukem II data files required for playing the game. The chosen location is stored in the user profile, so this only has to be done once.
• Adds a button to the options menu to choose a different Duke Nukem II installation (only in main menu's options menu).

Bug fixes

• Added missing rocket fire sounds for episode 3 boss enemy
• Stopped explosion sprites from incorrectly appearing in N4 and N8
• Fixed missing water animations
• Fixed collision detection for player shots. Now it's possible to properly shoot the first burnable wall in M5 with a rocket launcher
• Fixed collision detection for dynamic geometry, which fixed issues in N5

Overview

:warning: If you encounter missing DLL errors, install the Visual Studio 2019 Redistributable.

⚠️ Note: This release doesn't include the UI for selecting your Duke Nukem II installation yet. To make RigelEngine find the game data, copy RigelEngine.exe (and accompanying DLLs) into the directory of your Duke Nukem II installation, and launch RigelEngine.exe instead of NUKEM2.EXE.

This release completes registered version support, but there are still some bugs left to fix before reaching full parity with the original. Another update will hopefully follow soon!

In addition, a few bugs have been fixed, and the game can now be played using a game pad (e.g. Xbox controller, PS4 controller).

Release notes

New features

• Gamepad support (thanks to contributor @pratikone!)

New enemies

• Boss enemy for episode 2
• Boss enemy for episode 3
• Boss enemy for episode 4

New game mechanics

• Duke's flying ship
• "Airlock death" (Duke gets sucked into space when shooting certain walls)

Bug fixes

• Boss health bar now disappears when level is restarted due to player death
• Parallax background had an incorrect vertical offset, this is now fixed.
• Previously, the level wouldn't restart if the player died and fell into a bottomless pit while in the death animation. This is now fixed.
• Fixed another climbing pipe issue which prevented progress in M4.
• Added missing impact effect for reactor debris
• Fixed a couple of assertions in certain circumstances

Overview

This release adds an options menu to the game, and an optional wide-screen mode (thanks to contributor @pratikone!). Adding game options required a breaking change in the way the user profile is stored, which means that user profiles created from v0.5.0 or newer can't be loaded by older versions. Older profiles will be imported fine by v0.5.0, however. So if you've been using v0.4.x before, and switch to v0.5.0 now, the user profile will seamlessly carry over.

In addition, all the registered version enemies aside from the bosses have been implemented, making most of the levels from the registered version playable.

⚠️This release requires the Visual Studio 2019 redistributable.

Release notes

New features

• Options menu: The "game options" entry in the main menu as well as pressing F1 during gameplay are now bringing up a UI to control various game options.
  • Can switch between full-screen and windowed mode
  • Can toggle v-sync on and off
  • Can enable a frame rate limit when v-sync is off
  • Can control sound/music volume, and toggle sound/music on/off
• Wide-screen mode: The game can now optionally be played in wide-screen mode, which will use the full width of the screen to show the game world instead of pillarboxing (aka black bars). This changes the gameplay experience somewhat, since the levels weren't designed to be played this way, but it's also a lot of fun. Wide-screen mode can be toggled on and off in the options menu.

New HUD elements

• Duke's radar (shows close by enemies/items)

New enemies/hazards

• Wall-mounted flame thrower bot
• Ceiling-mounted grabber claw
• Lava fountain hazard
• Small unicycle bot
• Robot walking on wall
• Big green cat
• Spiked green creature, disguised as stone statue
• Small flying ships
• Rotating floor spikes hazard

Bug fixes

• Fixed various minor visual glitches
• Fixed a bug that prevented Duke from reaching certain climbable pipes
• It wasn't possible to destroy burnable walls with the rocket launcher, this is now fixed

UPDATE: An earlier version of this release had a wrong version of SDL2_mixer.dll, which required other DLLs to function. This is now fixed.

Release notes

• Replicates the original game's modding support: Files from the game data archive (NUKEM2.CMP) can be replaced by putting a file with the same name in the game's directory.
• Fixes potential sound playback issues on Windows.

Release notes

This is a minor bug fix release.

• Killing a Rigelatin soldier enemy will now produce sound effects
• When exiting the game and having a new high score, pressing the y key to confirm quitting the game would sometimes lead to a letter y getting input into the high score name entry field. This is now fixed.

Shareware episode fully playable, entering beta state

This release lifts RigelEngine to beta status: The entire shareware version (i.e. first episode) is now fully playable with all game mechanics and enemies, the game can be saved & loaded, and high scores can be entered into the high score list.

When launched for the first time, RigelEngine imports any existing saved games and high score lists from the original game's directory. From then on, these are saved in a user-specific user profile, which means several users on the same computer can have their own saved games and high score lists.

Major pieces still missing are the options menu, the in-game enemy radar, and demo playback.

Release notes

New non-game features

• In-game menu system
• Saving & loading
• High score lists
• Episode end story screens

New game mechanics

• Flame thrower jetpack (flying up when shooting downwards with the flame thrower)

New enemies

• Boss enemy for episode 1

Bug fixes

• Fixed a sound glitch at the start of L4